A Flock Divided: Race, Religion, and Politics in Mexico, 1749-1857. MATTHEW D. O'HARA: Duke University Press, 2010.

Abstract

Matthew D. O’Hara’s book, A Flock Divided, is a sophisticated and elegantly written addition to a growing body of literature on the social history of religion in Mexico. Eschewing easy dichotomies, deeply researched, and subtly considered, A Flock Dividedchallenges historians and sociologists of religion to reconsider some basic units of analysis. The book does not offer a strident revisionism but its evidence and conclusions produce nuanced revisioning of several areas of consideration in the standard Mexicanist literature. These range from methodological to thematic and the book, taken as a whole, offers a wealth of new ways to think about perennial questions of the topic.